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St. John the Baptist’s Alvaro Bezos wins CHSAA tennis singles title

Alvaro Bezos, of St. John the Baptist, won the CHSAA individual title and Chaminade's Neil Sathi and Kyle Burgess won the doubles championship, at Hofstra University, on May 17, 2017. (Newsday/Owen O'Brien)

Alvaro Bezos came to the United States for a year to improve his English. He’ll be leaving a champion.

“I came to feel the experience and improve my English, which is really important nowadays,” said Bezos, a senior from Spain attending St. John the Baptist. “And it’s also fun to play tennis, make some friends.”

“It was a great final,” said Bezos, who has been staying with a host family in Bayport. “I think he played pretty good. I played pretty good as well. I had a really tough semifinal as well so really happy for the win.”

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“I just thought to keep going and see what happens,” he said. “I think it’s better to just keep going and get it done as soon as possible.”

Bezos, who enrolled at St. John the Baptist in September, said he’ll be returning to Spain at the end of the school year for college and to continue playing tennis.

“It’s going to be a good memory for me in the future and this championship was pretty fun,” Bezos said. “I loved it.”

Chaminade rules doubles. Chaminade teammates became foes for an afternoon. The top-ranked team of Neil Sathi and Kyle Burgess defeated James Coccaro and James Coppola, 5-7, 6-4, 13-6, to win the doubles title. Coccaro and Coppola won three matches as the No. 10-ranked team out of 12 seeds over the two-day tournament to advance to the final. But after the Flyers won their fourth straight team title last week, Burgess wasn’t shocked at his opponent.

“I wasn’t that surprised,” the senior said. “We have a very good team so I expected to see another Chaminade team up there.”

Sathi also wasn’t surprised how the match played out.

“That’s just how it is for us, we always come down to the tiebreak,” Sathi said. “We were ready. We got out there and grabbed the lead. “It was a little strange to play them but it was a lot of fun. I had a blast.”